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Europe’s boat people
The smuggling of people across the Mediterranean is not a new phenomenon – in 1996 over 280 people died while being transported from Egypt to Italy – but the scale of it has expended massively over the...
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Crossing the Mediterranean
In April 2015 more than 1200 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as they tried to reach the safety of Europe. These include refugees from Syria, Eritrea. On the 19th April – when a...
View ArticleClimate Change, Human Impact, and Sustainable Development
Pope Francis: ‘The Earth, our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth’ In June, Pope Francis, leaders of the World’s Catholic Church, published a document (encyclical) on climate...
View ArticleThe Pope’s encyclical on climate change
Climate change, human impact, sustainable development The Pope has warned of an “unprecedented destruction of ecosystems” and “serious consequences for all of us” if humanity fails to act on climate...
View ArticleMixed Progress for the Millennium Development Goals
A recent article in the Guardian outlines the successes of the Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were intended as a precise and measurable way to focus development...
View ArticleBan Ki-Moon Assesses the Success of the Millennium Development Goals
A recent article in the Guardian outlines the successes of the Millennium Development Goals. In July 2015, The UN’s final Report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) claimed that it was ‘the most...
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The 2015 El Nino: Walker Circulation
El Nino (or the El Nino Southern Oscillation) is a reversal of the normal weather patterns in the southern Pacific Ocean, although it impacts have a global reach. It begins with surface waters of the...
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The 2015 El Nino: Weather Conditions
El Nino is a reversal of the normal weather conditions in the south Pacific. However, it has global consequences. The decline or reversal of the trade winds brings drought to Australia, India and...
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Global Inequality
Global inequality is growing, with half the world’s wealth now in the hands of just 1% of the population, according to Credit Suisse. Vertical axis: % of global population Horizontal axis: Wealth...
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China’s ‘left-behind children’
For the children of China’s young migrants, government restrictions mean they will generally not be able to attend schools or visit a state doctor. Up to 61 million Chinese children have been behind in...
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Obesity
Up to 1 billion of the world’s adults are projected to be obese by 2025. This is largely due to the spread of westernised diet due to intense marketing by the food industry. The World Health...
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Eradicating Malaria
Since 2000, malaria deaths around the world have fallen by nearly half. The steepest drop has come in sub-Saharan Africa, where 90% of fatalities occur. Malaria still kills around 450,000 people each...
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Invasive Species
Rhododendron in Britain; zebra mussels in the USA; cane toads in Australia are all invasive species, that were introduced by humans to new places and then multiplied. The European Union is about to...
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China, Global Warming and Air Pollution
When the Kyoto Protocol was being discussed, the USA was the world’s biggest polluter, and would not agree to mandatory reductions. Now, China is the world’s biggest polluter but it is showing signs...
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Floods and Extreme Weather
In December 2015 northern Britain’s was inundated with extremely wet weather. By December 29th at least 6,700 properties had been inundated in northern England, although no one had died; the floods...
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The growing problem of ‘stateless people’
Under international treaties including the UN convention on the rights of the child, governments are obliged to grant nationality to any child born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless....
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Pollution of the River Flint, Michigan
In the summer of 2014, LeeAnne Walters noticed that her son would get a rash every time he got into the swimming pool at their home in Flint, Michigan. By December that year, she had stopped letting...
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Zika Fever
Zika, a mosquito-borne virus that arrived in Brazil in May 2015, has since spread into 17 other countries in the Americas. Until October, Zika was not thought much of a threat: only a fifth of infected...
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How technology is endangering the call centre
Call centres have created millions of jobs in the emerging world. However, technology threatens to take those jobs away again. The new SM Aura shopping centre in Manila contains an enormous call centre...
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Greenland and resource nationalism – on hold
The melting of the Arctic ice has been mirrored by the thawing of political tensions in some parts of the Arctic. Since the 1990s, the Arctic countries have largely agreed to mark out their territories...
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